The freaks don’t want no Greeks.
I somehow sensed, from some deep intuitive place, that this time of my life was something really special.
I was free of constraint in some way. Constraint of parents, home, high school. Free of being defined by social status, or the expectations of others, well meaning or not.
I suddenly felt free to be an individual, and that was too valuable to be traded away. I guess I knew I didn’t need a group to define me. I seemed more interested in becoming all I dared dream, than joining a group to feel like I belonged somewhere.
For what I assume is the usual reason (apart from “we didn’t have them”, which was not applicable in my case): the whole “beg us and humiliate yourself for the chance to be let in” stuff, and the “we’re entitled” shtick, coupled with what would’ve been a horror that anyone would ever, even momentarily, think that I was like the fraternity guys I’d met — people whose intelligence, emotional maturity, and depth of field made the varsity-scholarship athletes look positively brilliant, philosophical, and sophisticated in comparison — if it had actually crossed my mind to consider such a thing.
Actually I suppose the folks I hung out with were equally snobby in our own way (although our way was not public or overt). We’re listening to folks and rock and blues and they’re doing country-pop or disco. They’re watching Porky’s and we’re going into town to see She’s Gotta Have It (preceded by Godzilla vs Bambi). They’re drinking and throwing up and smashing furniture in old antebellum houses they live in, or passing out in the bushes, and we’re smoking Columbian or Jamaican through decorative bongs, dumping the bong water out the window onto unconscious frat boys, and spacing out to Pink Floyd. It would no more have occurred to me to try to get into a frat than to try to get into the Daughers of the Confederacy.
Amen, elbows. I think that sums up my experience pretty well too. College was a time to try new things and be open to all sorts of people, not to try to find one small group that are a lot like me and hang out with them all the time. I wouldn’t have met most of my friends had I been in a sorority. I’m convinced.
Also, I prefer hanging out with guys or in mixed company. I’m one of those girls who would rather talk video games, Star Wars, cognitive theory, and other subjects that “girls in packs” don’t normally talk about. I can be girly, yes, but then again, who says I have to hang out with people who are just like me? Bor-ing!
The was pretty much my impression, too, but young women today revel in their sexuality in ways women in my generation (I’m 39) typicallydid not, so I’m not sure how that term is received (or rejected) today. Times change.
The frat boys I knew or associted with had a fairly demeaning attitude toward women that sometimes verged on the misogynistic. They saw the sorority girls as sexual chattel. I remember being at many a post-party confessional (usually in my apartment, shared with a couple of frat boys), wherein the lads would go into super-detailed accounts of that night’s sexual acts with sorority girls. They’d run down the list, girl by girl, talking about everything from favorite positions to just about anything you could imagine. At first, I thought it was typical horndog crowing but, no, the whole group would join in and provide even the most minute confirming details, then slap hands and drink more beer. How a guy emerges from this kind of environment with genuine respect for women is beyond me, but I guess this goes both ways.
My uncle, who was a prominent attorney in Miami before mysterious events caused him to sell his huge house practically overnight and move with his family to Israel in the early '80s, never to return, was a big shot in one of the frats at my school. It’s not like he and I were ever close, but I know he wanted me to join, and my parents would have supported that. Back in his day, they were all the pre-law and pre-med guys, mostly Jews, all up-and-coming successful types. Early in my freshman year (1996, this would be), I went to a few parties, and I found them to be a bunch of stereotypical louts: big, dumb, wannabe jocks (some muscleheads, but mostly just fat guys), colossal drunks and stoners, poor students, no respect for women, and so on. It wasn’t even one of the top frats at my school, a huge Southern public university famous for its atheletics and strong Greek system. So I didn’t join, even though they knew I was a legacy. Within a few weeks, I had joined a ska-punk band instead, making my parents roll their eyes and surely further alienating my absent uncle.
As a result of being a good student and a punk rocker in my spare time, I developed a strongly negative view of frats that, for what it’s worth, I largely hold to this day. I made plenty of friends in the dorm and through my band, and didn’t feel the need to “buy” them. Most of the frat boys at are school were either the meatheads or the preppies or the hardcore drunks and stoners, often some combination of the above, and usually pretty rich. I couldn’t keep up living and partying with them even if I had wanted to, but I didn’t. They were pretty uniformly the backwards cap/khakis/tucked-in plaid shirt/no socks/puka shell necklace/Abercrombie and Fitch model types, the kind of guys who worshipped Dave Matthews Band because they thought it could get them laid (and they were probably right). That wasn’t my scene or style at all. I wasn’t a huge drinker (and haven’t been until this year) and didn’t do any drugs, and I never had a good time at bars or clubs or parties. I didn’t date much on my own, and didn’t see how joining a frat would help me in particular score with the ladies. The stereotypical sorority girls wouldn’t want anything to do with me anyway, and I wasn’t losing any sleep over it.
Furthermore, I wanted nothing to do with the hazing, which was infamous. I know I wouldn’t be cut out for military life, where they tear you down in order to build you back up to their specifications, but I didn’t see the need for the brutal hazing you always hear about with frats. I wouldn’t put up with that from anyone – if I had made it as far as Hell Week, I would have told people to go fuck themselves, or possibly gotten violent if it came to that. Then I probably would have gotten my ass kicked by multiple people, so I was better off not even trying. I heard about creepy, weird, homoerotic stuff all the time: the “cookie game,” the “elephant walk,” lots of nudity, lots of “teabagging.” For organizations that were always trumpeting about how macho and manly they were, they seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time naked together, teasing each other and sticking things up each other’s asses (possibly quite literally). And yet, women still flocked to these guys, and thought they were the greatest thing since vibrating cell phones. I love my male friends. I hug them, I’d probably take a bullet for them, but I don’t want their thumbs anywhere near my ass or their nuts anywhere near my chin.
But there always seemed to be a dark side to frat life, at least at my school, and perhaps elsewhere too. Everyone talks about the “good ol’ boys network” and the secret handshakes and all that, and it just seemed so alien to me. But the frats were always getting in trouble, too. Once or twice a semester you’d hear about overdose deaths in the frat houses, fights where people ended up hospitalized or worse, and plenty of date rapes and allegations, including one sordid saga where some frat boys supposedly raped a stripper they hired, and even videotaped it. Some guys I knew produced an award-winning documentary about that incident, and I saw the original videotape while they were still in the early stages. It was chilling, both the incident itself and the casual, meant-to-be-funny comments the dozens of onlookers were making during it. One frat in particular, and I’m not shy about dropping a name – the Pikes – was particularly infamous for wild, orgiastic sex parties that often got out of control, guys who couldn’t keep it in their pants, and girls who ended up paying for it. I didn’t want to be anywhere near that stuff, and I felt contempt for everyone involved.
Now that I’m older, I realize that some frats were probably pretty cool, like the chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi my current roommate co-founded at the University of Central Florida. The guys I’ve met are all cool, and none of them fit the macho, misogynistic, elitist, lunkheaded stereotypes of frat boys at my school. Hey, if it works for people, that’s cool. I didn’t think it would work for me, and I was probably right. But there seemed to be a lot of problems inherent in the system, and it courted people I would normally want nothing to do with and wouldn’t want to be identified with. I’m sure there are plenty of good elements too, and if anyone found them, I am happy for them.
Hmm, and you’re from N. Carolina? Could be that we attend the same university…
As per my fraternity/sorority experience, I’m not especially a fan, but I can’t knock them either. I’m technically a Little Sister for Delta Kappa Epsilon, but since my friends in that frat were a year ahead of me and have since graduated, I never go by section anymore. Good thing, too. Both these guys were gay (and out, surprisingly, in this frat), and kept the insane conservatism to a tolerable level. Now that they’ve left, I wouldn’t ever set foot in DKE for a party - guys who claim that they’re “the next Pat Robertson” are not my cup of tea.
I did join a group called SHARE (Students Housing for Academic and Residential Experimentation) my sophomore year, which was essentially just the freaks and queers, and a perfectly lovely group of people. No hazing, no hell week, and a chocolate bar underneath my freshman door to let me know that I was accepted. (They couldn’t really afford to turn anyone away, small as they are.) My rush period involved a trip to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show (in full costume, of course), tea and hookah nights, and a viewing of penguin porn (don’t ask). All in all, a great experience.
Since sororities in my university don’t have on-campus housing, I had the option of rushing, but really, what’s the point? Pay $250 to run around, chanting silly songs, wearing the same white dresses, to hang around a bunch of straight, blond women? No thanks.
I didn’t join a fraternity at UT Austin because I was a commuter student, only on campus for classes and research when necessary, and I had a fiancee that I lived with who went to a different college in town. Even absent that disasterous relationship, I doubt that I’d have joined because I’d have been commuting even farther each way, plus the thought of paying dues (monetary or otherwise) to a social organization seemed absurd, especially given my (then) relative poverty and (enduring) cheapness. I held no real opinion of their virtures or vices, as they were never really visible to me.
Of course now I’m married to a soror who is active in her graduate chapter and advises the undergrads at UT. It is strange seeing the institution through such a different lens.
Various reasons:
I prefer a private residence with a family member or a friend. My first apartment was with my brother, my current one is with a friend from school. I’d prefer that over sharing an old house with 60 people. I like my privacy and freedom
I am not overly social and can be tempermental. I’m not rude or anything, but I am really happy and outgoing sometimes, really mentally into myself (meaning I just sit there an think) or I am depressed sometimes. So I don’t think I’d fit in a situation where everyone is expected to be outgoing and social all the time. I don’t know if that is what frats are like but that is my impression
I don’t like to drink alcohol
I don’t really like to party
I go to sleep at around 11pm
I’m older than everyone else, I started at Bloomington when I was 24
On the other hand it would’ve been nice to be surrounded by other people in a dorm or frat situation.
Rereading this thread reminded me of another reason I wouldn’t join, the hazing. There is no way in hell I am being bullied around, humiliated and coerced by a group of people. I would probably beat someone up if they tried that on me, I just don’t handle those situations well.
Excellent post, Big Bad Voodoo Lou
I think you’re missing the fact that it’s voluntary.
I’m at NC State.
I can’t remember the columnist’s name right now, but his writing really went downhill after that episode. His columns seem to indicate that either a) he really hates women or b) he’s really scared of vaginas. (The column he wrote when “The Vagina Monologues” was presented on campus was borderline paranoia.)
I commute from home, and I’m not a drinker. Fairly simple.
I also owned several J. Crew rollneck sweaters, a fuzzy ski parka liner from The North Face played ice hockey and grew up in Connecticut.
Not only did we own plaid shirts. We would independently buy the same plaid shirts. And there were 34 fraternities at my college each with another 30 or so guys just like us.
If you didn’t like fraternities, my college was probably not the school for you as pretty much everyone eventually joined one. To this day, when I meet a fellow college alumni, it’s still looked at as kind of odd to not have been in a fraternity.
Not a lot of diversity at that college.
I don’t want to pretend that some of the negative stuff isn’t true. Excessive drinking and drugs, womanizing (for the guys who actually could get laid), fights, hazing. Yes some of this stuff goes on to some degree. It’s different at each house.
We definitely didn’t do any of that homo-erotic pledgeing bullshit. I don’t know if anyone ever did. Farm animals, ookie cookie, circle jerks and elephant walks have become a kind of fraternity urban legend.
There are benefits once you are in. Chicks dig frat guys. There’s the social aspect. It’s nice having a pool of 30 guys to do stuff with. All that college BS aside, I did meet my GF through one of our fraternity parties and I remain close with many of the guys I pledged with.
I hear a lot of people throwing out terms like “not a joiner”, “tempermental”, “depressed” and “antisocial”. Don’t hate fraternities just because it’s not your cup of tea.
Ahhhh…Hell Week. That takes me back.
I went through sorority pledge week my freshman year. I declined to continue, and I never looked back. The incoming freshmen arrived a week early, and stayed in the dorms. We were divided into groups, and then herded from house to house. They were so afraid of one house having an unfair advantage, that your visits were timed (line up outside the house, in the rain, until EXACTLY 2:00pm) and you weren’t even allowed to take the nametag they had made for you. Any group that is afraid that a silly paper nametag is going to unfairly effect me decision, isn’t a group for me.
Ah, I’m a Duke girl, myself. For some reason I think one of our own very dear columnists wrote the same thing about the sorority girls here, but I could be making that in my own head.
Seeing as it’s basketball season, I’ll try to slink away without incident.
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You know, these are exactly the same reasons I wouldn’t join one either. I swore up and down that I wouldn’t be so stupid as to get hazed and be a drunken slut by the end of it.
But I ended up joining a (co-ed professional) fraternity. There wasn’t hazing. Or drinking. And I seem to have survived the pledge process with my morals intact. And I get to be in a family of girls AND guys. Hey, I guess I found the loophole. And it’s all thanks to one of my co-workers who started the chapter and threatened me on pain of torture to go to the rush events. I found a diverse group of people to talk about my classes with, but people who also like to just hang out and play RPGs during the weekends while other fraternities and sororities get smashed. I guess I was lucky in finding a fraternity that fit my wants and my needs.
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Just wanted to present another point of view. Ok, continue bashing. 
I would never voluntarily put myself in that situation though, so for me it’d be involuntary. And I’m sure there are examples of recruits wanting to back out of hazing but being pressured to go along with it. But I see your point.
Well there’s hazing and then there’s hazing. When you join a fraternity, there’s a certain amount of stupid bullshit you expect to go through. I don’t mean abusive anal rape crap. I mean goofy fun “man I can’t believe they made us do that” kind of stuff. And then there’s stuff you just have to do because you’re low man on the totem pole - cleaning the house after parties and whatnot.